


call me friend (but keep me closer)

by cherryconke



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, I'm so sorry, Idiots in Love, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, tbh mostly hurt and a little bit of comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 04:56:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21404548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryconke/pseuds/cherryconke
Summary: The deepest cracks of his heart know all too well how this ends: Felix, giving Sylvain his whole heart. Sylvain, cradling it in his hands before breaking it, again and again and again.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 29
Kudos: 437





	call me friend (but keep me closer)

_—_

_I know there’s something waiting for us _

_ I am sick of the chase but I’m stupid in love_

“This is a bad idea.”

Sylvain’s hands run up his sides, wrapping him up in an embrace so sweet he could cry. He feels more drunk from their kiss than the wine they’d had earlier that night as he fists his hands in Sylvain’s hair, pulling him down to his mouth again, smearing hot, searing kisses across his lips.

“This is _ such _ a bad idea.”

Their breath smells like wine, overly sweet where it mixes hot against each other. The pit in his stomach is hungry, insatiable, the air stuck to the inside of his lungs as he drinks in Sylvain. 

All of them had been out drinking, celebrating their victory in this moon’s mock battle. It only became known that Sylvain had lost his key – or maybe some spiteful lover had nicked it from him, they were both good possibilities, really – when they walked back to the dormitories, stumbling and laughing as they deposited each of their classmates off at their respective rooms. 

And somehow, in the blur of everything, Sylvain had ended up leaning against his door, a hot flush working its way down Felix’s chest as he fumbled for his key. Both of them tumbling over one another, this newly urgent desperation driving them together until Felix was pinned up against the inside of his door, Sylvain’s hands all over him, his own pressed flush against his broad chest.

They break apart, a strand of spit connecting their lips. He feels dazed, like he’s just been punched in the face – his reactions are slower and more sluggish than usual. They’re panting hard against each other’s lips, eyes feverish and half-lidded where they burn into the others.

He leans in again, this time slow and soft, melding his lips to Sylvain’s. He kisses him, intensely, with as much emotion as he’s ever shown anyone in his life – softening his hands, bringing them up to curl around his jaw, thumbs stroking across cheeks.

When they break away, Felix feels like he might cry – the way Sylvain is looking at him, just as surprised and awestruck as he feels, hits him with a wave of emotion so hard in his chest that it hurts to swallow. This desperate, sudden tenderness has left him breathless. Blood pounds in his ears as he watches Sylvain, drawn like a moth to a flame, his unspoken question spelled out across his face as he looks up at him.

“I’m–” Sylvain chokes out, the words seeming to stick in his throat. Felix is hanging onto every word, searching desperately for some sort of sign – a _ yes_, a _ finally _ – but only finding confusion, a mess of emotions rewriting themselves over Sylvain’s face with a crinkle of his brow, a small frown on his lips, his tongue darting out to moisten them, to soften the blow –

“I’m no good for you, Felix.” 

His words are just as deadly sharp as Felix’s favorite blade. He swallows, stricken, cracked open raw, feeling like he can’t quite breath. Practicing his deadpan stare has paid off, though, and he manages to reveal nothing of how his heart has been torn thoroughly apart with a level glare.

“Shut up,” he manages to snarl back, pulling his lips down in a bruising kiss, hiding the way his eyes water with sudden ferocity. When Sylvain pulls away from him this time, it feels different: more permanent, the empty space between their bodies nearly unbearable, threatening to rise up and choke his throat with hot tears.

Sylvain strokes the knuckle of a lone finger down the side of his face. His jaw is set in his usual determined, stubborn manner, but beneath that – and Felix can tell, he’s only spent his whole life memorizing every freckle on his face – his expression is bittersweet; melancholic. His breath washes hot against his forehead, lips soft and sweet where they move against his skin.

“I’ll only hurt you.”

It comes out soft and careful, letting him down as gently as possible, but that doesn’t stop Felix from screwing up his eyes, shuddering beneath his touch. The skin of his lower lip nearly breaks as he bites back tears.

Despite their promise, the one they’d made as kids, he leaves.

He always does, in the end.

—

_He came up through the water without a sound _

_ With my back to the shoreline, I dreamt that he drowned_

When they were younger, much younger, he could always tell when it was coming. He began to pick up on the signs early on – the Margrave’s bags packed, the melancholic pout that fixed itself to Sylvain’s lips on their last day together. He quickly learned that the visits between their fathers would always end eventually, which meant the blissful hours spent together would come to a close as well.

Felix cried _ so _ much back then. At first, he hadn’t understood why his best friend couldn’t just stay _ all the time _ – his life didn’t make much sense without him. Sometimes weeks or months would go by between visits. Time would slip so _ slowly _ when he was by himself, bored of pestering Glenn and practicing his swordsmanship on small wooden dummies. What was the point of it all without a partner in crime to run around with?

But as much as he hated when Sylvain had to leave – growing poutier and more irritable by the hour up until they were mounting their horses, standing in Glenn’s shadow as the Fraldarius family waved them off – months would go by, loneliness fading to a dull throb in his chest, and then a shock of red hair would pop around his door frame, bringing the light back into his life. 

Most of his childhood is a blurry smear of happy memories – climbing up their peach tree, the big one Ingrid and Dima weren’t allowed up, their sacred place. Days blurring to months giving way to years of laying in the grass, wrestling, riding, fighting, kissing bruised knees and rubbing tears and dirt and blood away from their eyes. 

Until.

Until Sylvain is sixteen and Felix is thirteen.

Felix still remembers the shrill of his own voice echoing throughout the halls of his home, calling for him:

“Sylvaaaain! Sylv!”

They’d been practicing outside, cold puffs of air bursting from their lips like tiny clouds as Sylvain beat Felix _ again_, when the older Gautier brother had called Sylvain inside. Felix doesn’t remember what he’d said – probably claiming their dad needed to talk to him about something or the other. 

He was getting bored with the wooden practice dummy, having thoroughly thrashed it with his new sword earlier that day, when he looked around the empty practice yard. How long had it been since Sylvain left? Felix rolls his eyes, exasperated with his friend – he could be _ such _ a slowpoke sometimes. 

His footsteps pad along the thick layers of rugs running down the endless halls, walking mindfully to avoid hitting his sheathed sword whenever he turns a corner. Glenn had just brought it back for him from his most recent campaign and he wasn’t used to the weight of it on his hip just yet.

The massive wooden door to their main hall is ajar, the low rumble of the council resonating like a steady hum from the big table in the center. He looks around, swallowed by the shadows the heavy curtains cast in the corners. His dad sits at the head of the heavy wooden table, Glenn to his right, Margrave Gautier to his left. The rest of the table was filled with other various noble and parents he knew – Ingrid’s dad was there, and so was Dimitri, the young prince’s expression solemn and serious. 

No Sylvain. And definitely no Miklan.

Dread curls in his gut, hot and heavy. He turns on his heel before anyone can look over and invite him in – they’d been doing that more and more lately, now that he’s getting older – dignified pace throttling to a flat-out run as he moves through the empty hallways.

Searching his house in its entirety doesn’t take long. It may be large, more of an estate than a house, really, but he knows all the hiding spots, the nooks and crannies Sylvain might’ve squirreled himself away in to get away from the wrath of his older brother. He’d been the one to show Sylvain them in the first place. 

A frantic sort of desperation claws its way up his throat when he rounds a corner and faces Miklan, ascending the stairs slowly, purposefully. 

“Where is he?” he bites out, doing his best to appear unaffected by the appearance of his best friend’s brother. He’s never liked Miklan, but over the years that dislike morphed into unbridled hatred, the kind that curled like a snake in the depths of his stomach, ready to strike at a moments notice. That hate had been fueled by purple bruises on Sylvain’s freckled skin; the black eyes and cracked ribs Miklan had so lovingly bestowed on his younger brother. 

Miklan smirks at him, looking self-satisfied in a way that makes Felix’s stomach twist into knots. “Well, wouldn’t you like to know?” The smirk makes Felix see red, roughly pushing past him to flee down the stairs, two at a time. 

It's quiet in the kitchens in the middle of the day, the staff undoubtedly busy setting out tea for the war council gathered upstairs. A cursory glance through the pantries and store rooms yields nothing. No Sylvain. 

He’s turning on his heel when the squeaky hinge of a wooden door rings through his ears. He whips around, eyes narrowing at the culprit– it's ajar just a crack, blowing a stream of cool air into the heat of the kitchen. 

Shouldering his way through, a full blast of winter air hits his face, numbing his cheeks. It’s quiet out here in the back of the estate – a bird caws alone in the distance, her harsh scream breaking the silence. He’s just about to turn back when his ears pick up a faint, chilling sound, unearthly in its agony. Felix’s gaze, sharp and shrewd, flicks over to the well. 

Oh Goddess, the _ well_.

Dread rises up in his stomach, bottomless and gaping, nausea threatening to swallow him whole. Realization hits him all at once, smacking him over the head like a hammer to an anvil. His heart skips a beat in his chest, the rushing sound of blood deafening in his ears. Is this what dying feels like?

His feet can’t carry him quick enough, peering over the ledge into the abyss below. Dark, bone-chilling cold emanates up from the bottom of the well. His scream is swallowed up by the blackness:

“SYLVAIN!”

Faint sobs echo off the stone walls, blurring into the most single most devastating noise he’s ever heard. Panic chokes the air in his throat, adrenaline and blood pumping through his body like he’s on fire, drowning out the sound of Sylvain’s desperate screams, which are crescendoing into something that sounds vaguely like his name. 

“Sylvain! I’m here! H-hold on!”

Blind hands fumble for the bucket, clipping it to the loose end of rope, praying to anyone who will listen to let this work, please Goddess, let this work. He reels it down furiously, cold metal numbing his hands until the rope runs out. 

Screams segue into heavy sobs of relief, of fingers scrabbling on tin, echoing back up to him. 

“I’m– I’m gonna pull you up,” he leans over, shouting, barely registering the line of tears rolling off the sharp point of his nose, down into the well. A muffled shout back is as good as a confirmation as he’s going to get, so he hopes against hope that Sylvain has a good enough grip on the bucket – they’d long outgrown those days they’d been able to fit inside, now all long limbs and sharp angles – and he _ pulls_, harder than he ever has, throwing his entire body weight down on the crank. 

Miraculously, the rope snaps taut but doesn’t break. So he proceeds. It’s slow, sweaty, and the hardest he’s ever worked in his life, but he doesn’t waver, gritting his teeth against the way his muscles scream for relief. 

His training sessions with Glenn have paid off tenfold when he hears the not-so-distant scrape of tin against the wall of the well. A shock of red hair, streaming icy water, follows, and then Sylvain’s hands are gripping desperately into the front of his cloak and he’s being slammed to the ground, breath knocked from his lungs as his body breaks Sylvain’s fall. 

Straining sobs reach Felix’s ears from where Sylvain’s collapsed against his chest, soaking him with ice water. His body racks against him in violent shudders, teeth chattering as he presses himself, insistent, into Felix’s neck.

“Syl, Syl, I’m right here, I’m here,” he soothes, running a gloved palm over his head, pushing sopping hair away from his forehead. Sylvain’s eyes are clenched shut, and Felix does his best to wrap his arms around him, cradling his body against his. He vaguely registers the smear of blood across freckled fingertips – his nails broken and jagged, as if he’d tried to climb out, oh _fuck_ _he tried to_ _climb out_. When he finally pulls away, Felix is terrified by the look in his eyes

Molten hazel, blank and unseeing, lacking their usual glimmer of mirth and frivolity. His lower lip quivers, teeth grinding against one another frantically as his face crumples against Felix’s collarbone again, chest heaving. Hot tears stain the fur of his cloak, and now he’s starting to shiver too, soaked to the bone as they both are.

“I’m here. I’m here.”

Sylvain doesn’t visit nearly as often after that.  
  


—

_ I faked it every time but that’s alright _

_ I can hardly feel anything, I hardly feel anything at all _

Sylvain’s socked feet swing off the edge of the bed where he sits, his back against the wall. It’s a rare moment of quiet – Sylvain idly thumbing through one of the books he’d picked up from the haphazard pile by his bed, Felix polishing the different pieces and parts of his armor at his desk. 

It’s only moments like these, soft and private, where he feels like he can let his guard down. When Sylvain isn’t putting on a show or flirting with anything that walks by. It’s peaceful, like this. He feels comfortable, cozy, at home in a way he rarely is. 

Which is why, when he hears Sylvain close the book and toss it aside on his bed, he doesn’t move from the pauldron he’s polishing, diligently working oil into the pebbled leather with a rag. He senses Sylvain’s presence, warm and comforting from where he stands behind him, as he leans over his shoulder to examine the dagger he’d finished sharpening earlier. 

Felix leans back into him, tipping his neck back to rest his head against his forearm. It’s surprisingly easy for him to be this soft, this open, around Sylvain – even if his years at school have morphed him into this haughty playboy persona only Felix seems to be able to look past. Hazel eyes smile down at him, twinkling in the dim firelight. 

“I think I’m gonna head to bed.”

Felix’s heart sinks just a bit. He’d been enjoying their quiet evening in, pushed inside by the rain and sleet pounding on the windows. It was cozy, reminiscent of their carefree childhood days, wrestling on the rug in front of the hearth before passing out, tangled up in one another. He doesn’t want it to end.

“Stay?” He surprises even himself, reaching a hand up to knock gently, playfully, against Sylvain’s. He tries to ignore the way the redhead shies away from his touch, mouth turning into the slightest frown. Felix retaliates by pushing his bottom lip out in a puppy-dog pout, the kind he knows Sylvain has never been able to say no to.

The glimmer in Sylvain’s eyes, the color of heartache, tells him what he needs to know before he even opens his mouth. 

“Forget it.” His voice is flat, all hope gone. He knows this look – the one where Sylvain tells him he’s going to sleep, when in reality he’s sneaking off to town, only to tumble into bed hours later, giggles and moans saturating the shared wall between their beds. 

Sylvain’s brows knit together, upset, which is _ so _fucking unfair. “Fe, I–“

He shuts down the rejection, thoroughly disinterested in whatever lame excuse he’s about to hear. 

“Forget about it. Go. Have fun.” The words sound hollow and empty as they ring through his ears. The abashed smile it brings to Sylvain’s face is almost, almost worth it. 

Later, empty sobs rack his ribs as he curls up into himself on top of his covers, alone and so, so tired. 

—

_ I hate you for what you did _

_ And I miss you like a little kid _

_“What do you mean, you’re joining the Golden Deer?”_

Felix spits at him, seeing red. Anger takes hold of him, creeping up in his throat, threatening to spill out in a scream. Instead he turns back to the wooden dummy he’d been practicing his footwork with, hacking blindly; viciously at the head.

“You’re leaving us? After all this time? And for what, so you can hang out with fucking _ Claude? _” 

Sylvain’s smile discomforts him in its falseness. Felix faintly registers the tiny step he takes backwards, away from him, a nervous twitch flitting across his face. _ Good, _he thinks savagely, stabbing once more at the dummy. He wants to see him squirm for this… this betrayal.

“I don’t think you’d understand.” 

He gnashes his teeth, whirling on Sylvain, stabbing his finger into the chestplate of his armor. The fact that he has to crane his neck to make eye contact only pisses him off further. “I _ told you_, just because you’re older–”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Sylvain just smirks at him, taking his finger and carefully removing it from his chest. Hazel eyes twinkle down at him. It had been a line he’d heard time and time again growing up and Sylvain _ knew _ how much he hated hearing it: _ you’re too young, you won’t understand_.

“Oh, Fe,” he sighs, unbearable as ever with that smug expression pasted to his face. Felix doesn’t think he can stand to look at his stupid face any longer without doing something he regrets, so he turns back to his swordwork, choosing to continue his fuming quietly.

“Don’t call me that.” He mutters, his brow creasing as he performs a quick parry and riposte. The way he throws himself into the move, all heat and no consideration, makes him clumsy, barely managing to nick the wood of the mannequin. 

“It’s just the best… the best option for me right now.” Sylvain’s voice is softer this time around, more gentle. He looks over to see his mask has slipped, just a bit – biting his lip nervously, hands twisting around each other.

And then Felix is exploding, evaporating in a hot steam of pure, unadulterated _ anger_.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Sylvain? Leaving us? You think that’s really the best _ option _ for you right now?” His voice comes out loud, louder than he intended, and thank Goddess the training grounds are usually empty like this after dinner, because he doesn’t quite know if he’d be able to contain his volume at this point.

“You’ve _ got _ to be fucking kidding me,” he mutters, rolling his eye as he whirls around, dragging his practice sword after him as he stomps off to the weapon rack. Sylvain chases after him, cocky smile slipping, looking just the tiniest bit desperate.

“Hey, Fe, don’t be like that,” he smiles, tugging on the edges of Felix’s sleeves, like they’re kids again. Felix rolls his eyes, shifting back to face him, hands coming up to capture Sylvain’s where they pluck anxiously at him.

“_What. _”

Sylvain swallows. He’s _ nervous_. It’s not a look Felix is used to seeing on his face. His breath washes hot over his face from where he stands above him.

“I’m sorry. Just trust me when I say… it’s better for me. This way.” 

This way._ Without you, _he implies.

Felix knows what this is about. He’d been expecting _ something _ to happen after the fallout of that night last moon, the one that ended with Sylvain leaving his room in the dead of night, tugging the collar of his shirt up sheepishly as he trailed off towards his own room (not to mention the shameful walk he’d made back to Felix’s for the spare key he kept in his desk). 

He’d watched from afar as the bruising marks he’d sucked into his neck slowly faded, purples and blues washing into muted pinks beneath his freckles. 

And he’d scoff at how dramatic it all is if it wasn’t for the way Sylvain’s voice cracks in the middle of his admission, the way his hands tremble against his, the watery look in his eyes that completely and utterly disarms Felix. Panic floods his gut, squeezing his stomach tight. He can’t handle tears, because if Sylvain cries, then he’s definitely going to– 

“...Okay.” He agrees, reluctantly, not even sure exactly what he’s agreeing to, but the small smile that pulls at Sylvain’s lips, his crooked dimple shining through and making an appearance, sends a low pool of hazy affection lancing through him. He swallows, suddenly realizing their hands are still connected, his grip still tight where his pale palms span over freckled fingers. 

He moves to release the tension, but then their hands are reversed, Sylvain’s fingers covering his own, squeezing tightly as he looks down at him imploringly, puppy-like.

“Our promise still stands, right?”

Honestly, he could scream at the unfairness of it all: how many times he promises himself to Sylvain. How many times Sylvain leaves him behind. How stupidly, madly in love with him he is. How he’d follow him anywhere if he let him.

It’s so one-sided, so _ unfair_, and yet here he is, saying words he’ll never regret:

“Yeah, Syl. Of course.”

—

_I never said I’d be all right _

_ Just thought I could hold myself together _

His nightmares start again when Rodrigue dies.

They’d been bad after Glenn’s death – he woke up gasping, breathless, barely managing to choke air into his lungs too many times to count – but had slowly faded from an every-night occurrence to an anomaly as the years passed. Eventually, Glenn’s face blurred in his mind, becoming soft and glowy the way memories get when you spend too much of the present thinking of the past. 

He’s never really slept well. Part of the beauty of training so hard he nearly passes out has been that getting to sleep was just a little bit easier, a little less trying. But after his father’s death, he feels on edge, snapping out at everyone around him, on his worst behavior.

They keep him up at night, the nightmares do – his body reluctant to let him fall asleep in anticipation of their return. It’s particularly inconvenient while they’re at war, camping in tents crowded close to one another, noises carrying to unsuspecting ears throughout the night. 

“I’m sorry, Felix, but– but you’re scaring everyone.”

Ingrid’s voice falters, eyes dropping to where she’s grasping his palms in hers, giving him a tight squeeze. Her face, usually a perfect mirror of determination and hunger, twists into concern. This should set off red flags in his head, but all he does is faintly register the absence of feeling. He’s not even angry anymore. Just numb. 

Bad thoughts whirl throughout his head, fleeting and inconsistently blurry. Ingrid’s voice floats through his ears, dully registering what she’s suggesting – for him to share tents, so someone could keep an eye on him throughout the night, to soothe the incessant night terrors away. 

It’s efficient, this plan of Ingrid’s, killing two birds with one stone: Felix’s pesky nightmare problem and keeping _ him _entertained during his visit with Dimitri. They both clearly need to be looked after – what better way to do it then to stick the two most miserable bastards in the army together?

His heart clenches while he maintains his impassive mask. He doesn’t need to hear his name, not coming from Ingrid’s lips. There’s only one person in camp who would volunteer for such a thankless task and he’s already memorized every detail of his face. “Fine. Whatever.” 

Later, after dinner, he isn’t surprised when his tent flap swings open to reveal Sylvain, arms laden with bedding and his saddlebag of things.

He’s older, the cut of his hair a little shaggier, a handful of new scars peppered across his face and neck. Felix hasn’t seen him up close since the war broke out four years ago, and only a few times since that, mostly as a blurry auburn smudge on the opposite side of the battlefield – until he showed up in their camp a couple of weeks ago, yellow uniform clashing _ horribly _ with his hair, an Alliance soldier through and through.

“Hey, Fe,” he smiles, wearing the same cocky grin he’d permanently glued to his face back in school. Seeing it again makes Felix want to cry, or smack the stupid out of him, or maybe both. 

“This’ll be fun, huh?” Sylvain drops his things to the floor unceremoniously, tossing him that lazy, practiced smile again. Felix rolls his eyes in return, turning back over in bed to stare determinedly at the canvas wall of his tent. He can’t help but hear Sylvain shuffling around behind him, the sharp _ whoosh _ of his bedroll snapping out beside his.

Forcing himself to stay awake doesn’t work. It never works, really, so he doesn’t know why he’s shocked when he wakes up thrashing, bewildered, a high-pitched keen whining from his lips as he breaks down into heaving sobs, chest wheezing, fingers clutching through his own tangled mess of hair. He shakes with tremors, trembling through the aftershocks.

“Shh, hey, Fe, I’m right here,” Sylvain’s voice is deep and scratchy with sleep, his arms moving to gather him up close. His body goes limp against Sylvain’s, allowing himself to pulled into him, his mind still wheeling with terror and nausea. That’s the thing with the nightmares – he can never remember what they’re about when he wakes up, but he’s pretty sure he can take a good guess.

His body, tight as a bowstring, crumples into Sylvain. His best friend holds him for the first time in years, and beneath him Felix can feel all the ways he’s changed with age, growing broader and stronger and sinewy at the seams. Still shocked from sleep and fear, he presses his face into the chest of Sylvain’s sleep shirt, wetting it with hot tears. Goddess. Even after all these years, he still smells the same – pine and sweat and earth and _ home_.

It hurts in the best way to be held like this – the unfamiliar presence of human touch so foreign it makes him a little nauseous. And then Sylvain ruins the moment the way he always does: by opening his stupid mouth.

“I’ve got you, Fe. I’ve got you.”

He wants to scream, to take those words and hurl them back at Sylvain, to say _ look at all these times you weren’t there, all the times you left me. _How was it possible to hate and love the same person at the same time? He’d grown up thinking the two emotions were mutually exclusive, like oil and water, never mixing. Maybe he was wrong. 

And suddenly Sylvain’s arms around him are too much, too soon, overwhelming his senses. A wave of emotion rises up, and Sylvain can’t see him, not like this – so he thrashes out of his blankets, sweat pasting his hair to his brow as he scrambles away from him. He’s choking on his words, sobbing around them, garbled in his mouth: “I can’t, I can’t–” 

When he starts running, he doesn’t know where he’s going. His socked feet trip over themselves as he flees, away from the comfortable heat of Sylvain – Sylvain, who finally came back to him, so, _ so _ late. He’s blinded by tears until he finally stops, lungs wheezing, at–

The river. 

It’s dark and cold, but pain and regret and anger overwhelm his senses, all rational thought thrown to the wind as he begins making his way down the bank. Water winds lazily through the reeds, black and oily as ink. He finds a rough stone near the water’s edge and perches himself up on it, curling his knees into his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He rests his chin, only shivering a little bit as he stares blankly out at the water. 

He expects the rustle he hears behind him – Sylvain has never been what one would call _ stealthy. _

“Wanna talk?” His voice has deepened over their years apart, and Felix can’t believe it’s taken him until now to realize it. A hot flash of shame sears through his insides. Four years apart. It’s been _ so long. _

“Go away.”

“Okay.” Sylvain agrees complacently, completely contradicting his words when he sinks down to sit on the rock adjacent to him. Felix doesn’t even bother arguing with him. Sylvain has always done whatever he wants, why would he start listening to him now?

He fights to steady his breath, still shaky from the adrenaline rush of his nightmare. The heat from Sylvain’s body seemed to temporarily sear heat into his bones, only starting to fade now in the crisp night air. 

“I’m sorry about Rodrigue.” Sylvain’s tone is oddly formal, over-pronounced, too practiced. Felix maintains his gaze forward, but it’s taking all of his willpower to not whirl around and give Sylvain one of his worst glares. His voice softens as he continues, “I know you cared about him, even if you pretended not to.”

Felix hisses through his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut furiously. “I said I _ don’t _ want to talk about it.”

Silence passes between them, as cold and frigid as the water rushing beneath them. And then, quiet, almost so soft Felix has to strain to hear it: “I came back for you.”

He can’t help but huff out a laugh, incredulous. The fucking _ nerve_. It had pissed him off back when they were in school and Sylvain switched to Golden Deer – growing up, the four of them had been the best of friends, Sylvain and him the closest of everyone. For some reason, and maybe it was the promise they had made to each other all those moons ago, but Felix had taken it for granted that they’d be together, inseparable, until the end.

But when he’d forsaken his family name and sided with the Alliance at the beginning of the war, Felix had been _ absolutely gutted. _The fantasy of meeting Sylvain on opposite sides of the battlefield had plagued Felix’s nightmares for months. Every time he received a new mission or briefing from Dedue, his heart would drop a little bit, scanning the page for a hint of Sylvain, Claude, or the Alliance peeking back at him. 

He’d cried sweet, bitter tears of relief when his plea to Dimitri got through that dense, scattered skull and he made the decision to side with the Alliance for the remainder of the war. When he actually took the time to peel back his emotions and examine them, he found that the sting of it all – of being left, over and over again, hadn’t faded. Maybe never would.

“Yeah, great job. You’re four years late, asshole.” 

Sylvain knows he doesn’t mean it, knows he could never really mean it, not truly.

“I’m sorry. I wish I came sooner.”

And is that… actual, honest-to-Goddess_ sincerity _he detects in Sylvain’s voice? Real, genuine regret? It’s enough to make him turn his head, narrowing his eyes at his old friend. He looks tired, hair sticking in every direction from sleep, but his face is open, a pained expression flirting across it as he looks out over the river. 

Sylvain’s gaze snaps over to him, burning into him, and he’s doing the thing with his eyes that makes him feel so fucking vulnerable. They don’t break gazes as Sylvain moves slowly towards him, like approaching a skittish animal, shifting his cloak over his shoulders, enveloping him in lush warmth. 

Catching his glare, Sylvain shrugs nonchalantly, pressing his shoulder companionably to his. “You looked cold, that’s all.”

“Okay.” 

And it shouldn’t hurt so much to say it, it shouldn’t be _so fucking_ _hard_ to accept Sylvain’s affections, but after so many years of getting his heart broken, Felix learned how to put up the walls necessary to keep himself safe. Even if it’s stupid, meaningless – the simple warmth of his cloak – it feels like a weird, small step. Felix just can’t tell if it’s in the right direction or not

They sit together in silence, watching the river rush over the rocky creekbed.

“Fe…”

“Sorry– we don’t have to talk, I just…” Sylvain swallows, rubbing the back of his neck. The familiarity of it makes Felix want to scream. “I need to know. How you’re really doing.”

He holds himself very, very still where Sylvain leans against him, willing away the familiar heat of tears from the corners of his eyes. His walls threaten to crack, beg to be knocked down in a single swift blow of vulnerability and honesty. He swallows hard, fighting to control his reaction, to steady his breath.

Memories flash, seared into his skull, of when they were younger, after they both got the news about Glenn: of Sylvain’s fingers laced through his hair while he sobbed into his shoulder on his bed for hours on end. Of Sylvain, patient as ever as he picked up shattered vase after shattered plate, dashed against the walls and floors in anger and frustration. Of Sylvain, soothing away his prickles and thorns with nothing but love, given freely, in abundance.

Sylvain Gautier might break his heart again and again, year after year, but he always tries to pick up the pieces when it matters the most. 

But.

Felix can’t let him slip through the cracks of his armor. Not again. Goddess knows it only leads to this: suffering and loneliness, Felix opening up only to be crushed as easy as a flower in the palm of his hand when Sylvain leaves him behind, onto bigger and better things. 

He slips off the rock they’re both perched on, out from under the soft warmth of Sylvain’s cloak, away from the warm press of their shoulders together. He turns back towards Sylvain, blurry in his line of sight, tears clinging to his lashes until he’s glowing beneath the moonlight, looking bewildered beneath the draping folds of his furs.

“I can’t do this. Not again.” 

And this time it’s his turn to drop the bomb, to let Sylvain down in a hundred different awful ways. His face falls, and in all their years together Felix has never seen him look more completely and thoroughly devastated than he does now. 

“Fe, wait–”

And of course Sylvain’s chasing after him, tugging on his sleeve, overwhelmingly reminiscent of their rug-burned youth. His hands wrap him closer, and Felix has to fight every bone in his body to force himself to step away from the warmth of his fingers, brushing across his hip, overly familiar, too close for friends.

“No, Syl.”

It hurts like hell when those hands fall away. And the look Sylvain gives him is gutting – brows creased in worry, mouth parting at the seam, something behind his hazel eyes seeming to positively crumble. It’s almost enough to make him take it back, to throw himself into his arms and never let go.

Almost.

But the broken, shattered part of him wins out like it always does. Like it has since Glenn died.

—

_A_ _nd I woke up in my childhood bed _

_ Wishing I was someone else, feeling sorry for myself _

They win the war. Felix feels nothing but shame. 

It curls hot in his gut when he thinks of the day they captured Enbarr. Memories, burned into the backs of his eyelids, come to him at the most inopportune times: of Ferdinand’s face, blood-spattered and split open, of a head of hair white and cold as snow rolling down the palace steps, of a one-eyed wild king and his triumphant scream that echoed through the sky like rolling thunder.

They’re all sent off to their respective homelands to carry out Dimitri’s simple task: restore a fractured and war-ravaged Fodlan. Felix tackles this task just like he does for anything else: with devotion and dedication. It’s easy enough to throw himself into his work. As thankless as the tasks are, they occupy his mind, leaving him no energy to expend on dwelling through the past.

Time passes. Weeks, at first, then entire months slip through his fingers like water. Nobody comes to visit. He hears from Ingrid occasionally through letters, long winding things scrawled in her atrocious handwriting. When the calendar tears off into Garland Moon, he finds himself caught in a wave of sentimentality, and he asks the house staff to send along a crate of peaches, Sylvain’s favorite from all the summers they spent together up in that old tree.

Sylvain rules Gautier peaceably – at least, that’s what Felix hears passed along through letters and correspondence. Though his territory and Sylvain’s is adjacent to the other’s, they keep their distance, only communicating when absolutely necessary.

Slowly, quietly, he retreats into himself. When he grows too accustomed to his schedule, he changes it – taking long rides through the thick forests that blanket themselves across the rocky, rolling mountains of the northernmost reaches of Faerghus. He’s never been particularly fond of horses, but the stables remind him of Sylvain, more bright-eyed and knobby-kneed than the wildest ponies.

One day he wakes up with an itch in his chest. At first he thinks it’s because it’s the anniversary of a united Fodlan – a year ago today, that damned war came to an end. But the day ends, and the cough remains, slowly worsening until he begins every day coughing his lungs out.

It escalated slowly after time, the sickness that got hold of him and oozed into his chest. Whatever it is, he knows it probably could’ve been healed early on with the help of someone like Mercie or Lin – _ but Lin is dead, I killed him, _he has to remind himself over and over.

But now? At this point? He must be a glutton for pain, because slowly ebbing away feels like a fitting enough punishment for a life full of regrets. 

He used to think, when he was younger and dumber, that fighting would be what kills him: a messy affair, involving blood and swords on a distant battlefield somewhere. Now he realizes that he’s destined for a different sort of end, one that’s much more mundane: gradually withering the years away at his father’s desk while tending to the tedious, arduous task of repairing a Dukedom.

It’s hard to concentrate when he thinks of who should really be here, sitting in this seat. Glenn was always more chivalrous, more charming, more booksmart – simply _ more _ of everything Felix was not, is not, can never be. His stomach aches painfully whenever the thought crosses his mind (at least several times a day) as he pores over reports and letters. So he tries not to think about it.

He tries not to think about a lot of things.

Like right now: right now he’s trying not to think of the flecks of blood that marked his palm after his ritual coughing fit this morning. It wasn’t the first time – not by a long shot – he’d woken up with his chest too tight, ribs cracking, lips spluttering for air. It was, however, the first time there was blood.

He’s never been particularly well-versed in healing magic (that was always Mercie’s forte), but he knows enough to understand that blood is _ never _a good sign.

Pushing the thought away – yet again – he forces himself to refocus on whatever letter is in front of him. A letter from a farmer on the outskirts of the duchy from the past moon. Near their shared border with Gautier. Right.

A year after Enbarr and he’s still picking up the pieces of his broken home and going through the slow, painstaking process of rebuilding. The work was grueling, but he’d worked tirelessly to restore the duchy to something that vaguely resembles what he remembered from his childhood. Sturdy, stable, maybe even strong.

He’s interrupted from the line he’s been stuck reading over and over again – _ they really only have a couple head of cattle after those attacks from Sreng last month? _– by a knock on the door of his father’s study.

“Mm.” He waves his hand lazily at whoever is pestering him this time, not bothering to look up. It’s probably the kitchen staff again, trying to get him to eat.

The next words that come out of the courier’s mouth send him into freefall, trying and failing to hold onto a single shred of reality. He splutters, unable to maintain his composure, a hard pit forming in the back of his throat.

Sylvain is here.

_ Sylvain _ is _ here_.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Where is he?” He bites out impatiently, shuffling the letters into a pile off to the side of his desk. He faintly registers his hands running through his hair nervously, watching the man sprint off towards the entryway.

The last time he’d seen Sylvain had been on the border of their territories, a little over a year and a half ago. He still thinks about their parting hug sometimes (okay, maybe more than just sometimes), the memory fuzzy and smeared from the passing of time. What he still holds onto is how soft and solid and warm Sylvain had been against him, lighting all his bones on fire in a way your friend isn’t supposed to.

He doesn’t remember the last time he felt so warm.

Felix turns his head, glancing out the wide-paned window that looks out over the rest of the estate. It’s snowing outside, the ground covered with an uneven crunch of powdery white. A lone set of hoofprints drags through it, marring the otherwise undisturbed, perfect layer of snow.

Rising to get a closer look, he catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection. He’s never been vain about his looks – not like Sylvain was – but he looks… tired. _ Feels _ tired. Older. He’s let his hair grow long, out of apathy more than anything else. The circles beneath his eyes, the ones he’s carried his whole life, seem deeper, darker, the color of fresh bruises. His fingers are thinner, bonier, somehow, as he covers his mouth to catch a deep, coughing bark. No blood this time. 

In contrast, the year they’ve spent apart has been kind to Sylvain. He’s retained his same boyish handsomeness, but with a tease of maturity dashed in – the stubble shadowing his jawline, the artful graze of auburn locks framing his face. 

“Felix!”

He turns away from the window as Sylvain approaches him, stopping a few feet short of the barrier between the two: his father’s wooden desk, massive and hulking, in the middle of the room. Felix studies the grin plastered on his face, the awkward way he’s holding his arms. Reading him comes easily, even after all this time. He’s learned from years of secretly studying him that nearly everything Sylvain projects is just that: a projection.

In the few minutes he’s had to process Sylvain’s arrival, he still didn’t know what to make of the fact that he’s just _ here, _ in front of him, flesh and blood and _ real_, not an illusion in a cruel dream. 

“Sylvain.”

He maintains his impassive expression, muscles unused to exhibiting much emotion anymore, betraying nothing of how his mind is moving at lightspeed, trying to figure out how he ended up here, trapped behind his desk, confronting his one biggest regret. Sylvain’s grin slips a bit as he leans forward, closer to him.

“Fe… Felix? What happened?” Sylvain takes a tentative step towards him, but quickly stops himself short when he sees the darkening expression on Felix’s face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice comes out too sharp, too stinging. Scowling, he turns back towards the window, pretending not to notice the way Sylvain subtly cringes away from him.

“Fe, you don’t look so good. You look… sick.”

And there it is. Leave it up to Sylvain to call him on his bullshit within minutes of seeing each other again after an entire year and a half apart.

“I’m _ fine_.”

The tone in his voice leaves no room for questions or rebuttals. The silence beats out for a few moments, and he works to soften his tone when he turns back towards him, unable to keep his eyes from raking him up and down. “Why are you here?”

Sylvain’s expression narrows, his mouth twisting into a little scowl as he looks down at him. Felix notices his jaw clenching, grinding. This time it’s his words that are piercing, bright in their raw honesty.

“Really, Felix? I haven’t seen you since Enbarr.” He huffs an unamused laugh, and the soundwave stings as he sits there, crawling into his chest to burrow deep into him. “I guess it figures you’d be an ass about it.”

His heart sinks a little in his ribcage, deflated. How often in his life had he begged himself to not be so prickly, so difficult, but nothing ever came out right? His tongue fumbles for the words, the right way to recover this, to take it back.

“I just wanted to check up on you, alright?” Sylvain’s tone is softer, almost pleading this time around. “You haven’t answered any of my letters.”

Their gazes drift in tandem to the mess of stationary between them, piled high and unopened. It wasn’t exactly _ untrue _ that he’d been neglecting his duties, but the days lately had been getting more painful, harder to endure. Sometimes sitting down in his office made him want to scream.

A blush heats his cheeks and he averts his eyes, turning away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. Things are busy here.” 

Pressure returns to his chest, slowly rising up to weigh his lungs down. He coughs once, weakly, into his arm, which starts a cascading waterfall of more, until he’s clenching his eyes shut hard, burying his face into the elbow of his shirt. His throat constricts as he gasps for breath, embarrassed, wanting to melt into the ground.

“Hey, Fe–”

“I’m. Fine.” He manages to grit out, less convincing this time. Felix averts his eyes from Sylvain’s piercing gaze as he skirts around the other side of the desk towards the door. He pauses in the threshold, turning slightly back towards him. 

“I’m busy today. I’ll have the staff make up your old room for you.”

He leaves Sylvain standing in the middle of his father’s office, looking dejected and confused, smelling like fresh, cold snow.

_—_

_And if you find me, will you know me? _

_ Will you take me, or will you fall? _

Lamps flicker shadows onto the walls, the setting sun swiftly turning the room dark. Felix lets his eyes wander over to the window as he sucks on the tip of his pen, deep in thought. Letter writing has never been his strong suit. If someone had told him he’d grow up and spend most of his waking hours doing it, he would’ve laughed in their face.

But he’s behind on it, and he’s avoiding Sylvain, so he works through the stack slowly, penning replies in careful, spiky penmanship. It’s not the best show of manners to a guest, to leave them to dine alone, but Felix knows that Sylvain doesn’t mind the lack of formalities.

Another coughing fit comes on, sudden this time. He’s not quick enough to back away as his hands tremble, spasming, knocking the inkwell across his desk.

“Fuck,” he snarls under his breath, eyes squeezed shut as he lets the coughs wrack through his body. His lungs bellow for air, working overtime, until he isn’t struggling quite as much. Breaths come in short little gasps as he buries his head into his arms, slumping forward in his chair – the one his father had filled out so regally. He can barely touch his toes to the floor sitting in it.

“Hey.”

Sylvain’s voice carries deep and steady from where he stands leaning against the doorframe. Goddess. Felix never asked for a best friend who consistently shows up at the exact wrong time, but here they both are.

“You okay, Fe? That’s a… nasty sounding cough.” His voice is fake again, like it was so often back when they were in school. The sound of it grates on his nerves. 

“Shut up.” His voice cracks, dull and worn out, a side effect of how his throat’s been stripped raw. Felix shakes his bangs out of his eyes, fingers only trembling a tiny bit as he reaches down to pick up the now-empty inkwell. There’s a dark stain on the ornate carpet, his family crest woven into it in an undulating pattern of teal and gold fibers. Part of his brain briefly notes that he’ll need to get it replaced. The other part doesn’t really care.

Sylvain moves closer into the room, rounding the barrier of the desk. He’s changed from his snow-speckled cloak he arrived in, wearing a loosely collared shirt tucked into soft pants. Felix is reminded of all the nights they spent lounging around in front of the fire together, made soft by sleep. He leans his hip casually against the walnut grain of his father’s desk, arms crossed across his broad chest as he looks down at him. His voice is full of sympathy Felix neither wants nor needs.

“Let me take care of you.”

The words strike deep at a little part of him he thought he’d stuffed away. He studiously avoids Sylvain’s gaze, choosing instead to fiddle with the corner of the parchment. Was it really so bad that _ Sylvain _ of all people was worried about him? But he chooses to respond the only way he knows how: stubborn denial. “I can take care of myself.”

“Please?”

His immediate reaction is to bristle, shying away from Sylvain, leaning back in the desk chair as he looks up at him. The redhead takes a step, and then another, carefully crowding his vision. The last time they were this close was when they were saying their farewells, Felix’s nose buried in the front of Sylvain’s cloak, right against his heart.

“Fuck you.” 

It’s halfhearted, tired as it comes out of his mouth, made less effective by the sharp cough that follows. He doesn’t mean it, not really, and they both know it.

Sylvain sinks to his knees on the carpet before him, suddenly eye level. His fingers are warm where they pull against his own, ink-stained and half-numb. He suppresses a shudder. When was the last time he’d been touched? He pushes the thought away quickly, eyes dropping down to where Sylvain’s wide palms overlap his own.

“Just for tonight.”

It takes him far too much courage to tilt his head and meet those hazel eyes, but once he does, he feels his prickly armor beginning to melt away, bit by bit.

“Okay.”

Sylvain, blessedly, doesn’t ask any more questions as he leads him from the room full of his family’s ghosts and towards his own chambers. The hallways are dark and empty, their footsteps muffled by thick carpet. The keep is asleep. It must be later than he’d thought.

The door clicks quietly behind him, and Sylvain’s lips are pulling into a distinct, worried frown as he steps carefully towards him, like he would approach a wounded animal.

“Let me help,” he breathes quietly, insistent. Felix knows that he doesn’t pose it as a question, because _ of course _ his reply would be the most scathing _ no _ he could muster. He watches, wary, barely daring to breathe as broad hands come up to unfasten the fur mantle around his shoulders, dropping it to pool heavily around their feet.

And even though it’s been years, there’s something about Sylvain that knocks the fight out of him. It’s always been that way, growing up, going to school, fighting alongside and against each other in war. Sylvain’s always been the one constant in his life, the one person more persistent, somehow strikingly stubborn. No matter the weather, Sylvain could always wear him down.

Which is why he doesn’t bother to put up a fight as Sylvain undresses him, carefully, deliberately. His brain fizzles out, giving his mind a rest, handing the reins over to someone else for a change. It feels good. Not much does, anymore, so he lets it happen with minimal fuss.

Not to mention it’s harder to think about arguing when Sylvain’s hands, sturdy and broad where they push against his shoulder blades, are guiding him to the bath.

He simply stands, zoning out, so _ tired_, as Sylvain moves around him, filling the tub with water and salt and scented oils. It takes another gentle push of his fingers against his lower back to move him into the tub, sinking down as his body folds in beneath him.

“Feel good?” Sylvain’s voice is warm in his ear. There’s no hint of sarcasm or teasing, and thank Goddess, because he feels like anything at all would be enough to make him fall apart at the seams.

“Mm.”

He dips in completely, letting his eyes slide shut as his ears are filled with the ghostly sounds of his body shifting in the water.

He comes up to the surface, breathing deeply. The air around him is warm and steamy, sharply scented with eucalyptus and… lemongrass, maybe? Where the hell did Sylvain learn to draw such a nice bath?

He hums as Sylvain’s hands stroke through his hair gently, pulling out the ratty hair tie he hasn’t replaced in years. He can’t help but lean into the touch, letting out a soft sigh as he lets his limbs float, loose and relaxed in the bath water. 

The stroke of his fingers, always gentle, never tugging, becomes hypnotically soothing, and the longer Sylvain goes on, the further he feels himself sink into the sweet oblivion of bonelessness. The tension bleeds out of him as the bath slowly grows cold and Sylvain goes through a thorough ritual – soap, lather, rinse, repeat.

He can’t help the pitiful whine that leaves him when the rhythmic pace of Sylvain’s fingers comes to a stop, soft coughs washing through him, loosened by steam. He doesn’t protest, though, when Sylvain gathers him up out of the bath, wrapping him in an oversized towel, guiding him to sit on the stool he’d been perched on near the edge of the tub. 

Felix’s eyes close once again at the feeling of Sylvain brushing through his hair once more, this time with a comb. He tips his head back, letting his body go lax against where Sylvain sits behind him. Deft fingers weave through his wet hair, plaiting it neatly back into two long, identical braids. He must’ve lost track of how long he’d let it go, he muses, feeling the ends tickle halfway down his spine.

He reaches up as Sylvain secures the last hair tie, feeling gingerly at how intricate his handiwork was. “Where did you–“

“Ingrid.” Sylvain lets his hands fall, absently rubbing circles into a puckered scar on his shoulder. He doesn’t elaborate before pulling Felix gently up, an arm around his waist as he leads him to bed. 

It’s a testament to how exhausted he must be, because he doesn’t even _ try _to put up a show of fighting Sylvain when he grabs two pairs of clean, loose pants from his dresser and tosses him one. He stares, a little bit dumbfounded, as Sylvain begins undressing, before turning slowly to pull his own pair on. 

Warmth radiates through his limbs as Sylvain slots himself in bed behind him. There’s a small rearranging – Sylvain’s wide hand reaching to wrap around his stomach and chest; Felix shifting his hips back in the curve of Sylvain’s. Sylvain’s breath ghosts hot against his nape, and he has to remind himself to not wiggle even further back into his embrace. 

They fit together so well like this, he thinks numbly as he brings one of his hands to cover Sylvain’s, daring to interlace their fingers together.

As good as it feels, the deepest cracks of his heart know all too well how this ends: Felix, giving Sylvain his whole heart. Sylvain, cradling it in his hands before breaking it, again and again and again. 

Tonight, though, he’s so tired, too tired to care what will come in the morning. Sylvain feels so warm against him, and it doesn’t take long for his eyelids to fall, reveling in the way his best friend’s nose presses into his neck, the comfortable weight grounding him in reality. Sylvain’s breath softens, evening out, and Felix quickly follows suit.

—

_You got me good, I knew you would _

_ But you missed my heart, you missed my heart _

The coughing returns in the morning, like it always does. 

Any hopes of keeping the full extent of his illness hidden from Sylvain flies out the window with the first cough – hacking, horrible, deep and barking. He moves to sit up in bed, his back to Sylvain, eyes squeezed shut as he wheezes into his elbow. Mornings are always the worst. 

The expression on Sylvain’s face is grim as he sits up, hair thoroughly disheveled from sleep, squeezing an arm around him, broad hand running soothingly across his back to help him work through his coughs. 

His whole body feels strained and exhausted as his lungs slowly return to normal. When he brings his elbow down from his face, there’s a bright spatter of blood trickling down his arm.

He turns away from Sylvain as quickly as he can, his face heating up with embarrassment as he hastily scrambles to get out of bed. “Hey, Fe–“

He vehemently ignores Sylvain as he dunks a wash rag into a basin of tepid water and scrubs at the skin of his elbow. The rag comes away pink. 

“Felix, what is–“ It figures Sylvain would follow him into the bathroom. 

“It’s nothing.” The lie rolls off his tongue too easily. 

“Hey, hey–!” He turns away from Sylvain, wanting, _ needing _ to escape the barrage of questions heading his way. 

“It’s _ nothing._” He snaps forcefully, biting each word out with as much disdain as he can. 

“Fuck, Felix, it clearly isn’t–“

Sylvain’s hand grabs him by the bicep, too warm, too strong for him to shake. He puts up a fight, his face screwing up in anger. 

“Get _ off _ me, you fucking–“ his hiss is cut off short as Sylvain grabs his other shoulder, shaking him _ hard_. “Fuck, Syl!”

A dazed part of his brain registers how much taller Sylvain has grown in their years apart. Another part of him realizes this is the first time he’s ever been anything but gentle with him outside sparring and the battlefield. This brings him back down to reality more than any words can. 

Sylvain’s glaring at him now, looking more furious than Felix has ever seen him. The grip alone on his shoulders is enough to leave bruises. 

“You stubborn _ ass,_” Sylvain spits out. Felix turns his head away, unwilling to meet his gaze, hating the way Sylvain’s eyes are absolutely trying to burn him alive. 

His composure finally, finally cracks when Sylvain’s grip loosens on one of his shoulders. The tips of Sylvain’s fingers press gently but insistently on his chin, tilting his face up towards him. 

“Do you remember the promise we made?”

Suddenly his face is crushed against Sylvain’s bare chest, his arms enveloping him completely. There’s shock ringing through his ears as Sylvain’s lips pepper tiny, chaste kisses to the top of his head. 

“I’m– not– letting– you– die–“ His words are fierce and intense between kisses. Somehow – just like he knows the sky is blue, just like he knows his father is dead – he knows Sylvain absolutely, positively means it. 

Sylvain pulls away, eyes red and puffy, still glaring at him. “I’m not gonna just sit here while you… wither away. It’s pathetic, Fe. How come you didn’t _ tell _ me you’re sick? Have you even seen a healer? How the fuck am I supposed to live–“

Felix erupts in anger before he realizes what’s happening, hot tears streaming down his cheeks.

“You wanna know how you’ll live? You’ll leave, Sylvain.” Watching the words wash over Sylvain feels like twisting a knife into his gut, but he continues anyway. He pushes him away, stepping back, absolutely fuming. “You’ll leave again, you always do, you always fucking _ leave me_–”

All the blood rushes to Felix’s head when Sylvain’s face crowds his vision, blurry in the watery smear of tears sticking to his eyelashes. He watches in a heady mixture of anger and confusion as he leans down, drawing him close, to plant his lips squarely on his. 

It isn’t neat, and it doesn’t last long, but he can barely register what’s happening as they share their second kiss. His hands press against Sylvain’s broad, bare chest – _ how did that happen? _ – and when they pull away, Sylvain’s expression mirrors his own: shocked and confused. A beat passes, then another, and the slow lick of dread unfurls through his bloodstream.

Fuck. Oh _ fuck. _

He’s still pressing his hands to Sylvain’s chest, his palms flat against warm, bare skin. It feels like he’s disassociating from his body, watching the scene unfold from some distant, far off point.

Slowly, too slowly, so slow Felix feels like he’s underwater, Sylvain’s face stretches into an expression of awe. His stomach is busy doing somersaults as Sylvain parts his lips, opens his mouth –

And dives down to press his lips against Felix’s again.

Time stops as Sylvain moves his mouth against his. It’s so warm – hot, even, searing against his lips. He parts the seam of his lips, tongue darting out to trace the outline of Sylvain’s mouth: shy, hesitant.

And just like that, his fever breaks: his anger rapidly draining out of him as Sylvain licks into his mouth, tasting the copper tang of blood and salty tears and last night’s sleep, holding him like he’ll disappear through his fingers without a moment's notice. 

Sylvain’s hands reach down to circle his waist, leaving blazing paths where they come into contact with his skin. They come to rest around his lower back, gripping his hips with steady palms. 

Time speeds up again, leaving him reeling and dizzy as Sylvain pulls away, just a hair. Felix dares to peek his eyes open. 

Sylvain’s hair glows against the watery morning light pouring through the windows, his lips soft and plush when they part from his own. He looks absolutely _ divine_.

They kiss, and they kiss, and they kiss, and _ Goddess _ if it isn’t the warmest Felix has ever felt – pleasant tingles shooting down his spine as Sylvain grips him, just a little bit closer, against his body. 

Quiet tears roll down his cheeks as they kiss, and when they pull apart Sylvain’s whispering into the crown of his forehead. “Tell me, sweetheart, please,” and those words send shaking sobs through him, wrapped up in his arms as Sylvain begs to repent. 

“You always leave,” he hiccups again, his brain a broken record of despair, lashes fluttering over the curve of Sylvain’s collarbone. “You’ll leave this time too.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Y–you weren’t there when I needed you.” It’s gutting and awful and so fucking cathartic to let these words bubble up, unbidden, trapped as they’ve been inside him for years and years. He doesn’t look up to Sylvain, can’t meet his eyes, afraid that he won’t be able to continue.

“I was…” _ in love with you, _he nearly lets slip, but he catches himself before continuing. “You left me for the girls, and Claude, and then during the war–“

“I–I had to go.” Sylvain’s voice sounds faint and wrecked above him. Felix falls silent, letting his woes die on his lips. If this is it, then he’s listening with everything he’s got.

The silence stretches between them, as vast as every ocean, achingly empty aside from the swelling beat of Sylvain’s heart beneath his palm. He waits, because he always does, because of _ course _ he does. 

“I had to get away from my family, Fe. I… I couldn’t take it anymore. School wasn’t far enough– my father was playing matchmaker all the way across the continent, trying to turn me into someone I’m not.” 

Sylvain swallows, hard. Felix can feel the bob of his throat against where the top of his head rests. He wants to protest, to tell him he already _ knows _ this, but he quiets the wild squall of his heart, waiting for Sylvain to continue.

“It was too much. I was going to do something… something stupid, something bad. That’s why I switched houses. Not because of anything you did, or Dimitri, or Ingrid. To be free.”

Sylvain’s tone is begging now, his fingers pushing themselves into the ridges of Felix’s spine, tears rolling freely, tracking little trails of damp across where they fall on his head, trickling down the back of his neck.

“Claude helped me out, Fe. He–” and Sylvain stutters here, so Felix returns the squeeze, bringing his hands up to stroke soothingly over his shoulder blades, “He helped me kill Miklan. He gave me an easy out from my parents. I couldn’t get that if I stayed with Dimitri.”

In the furthest depths of him, Felix _ knows _ he’s right. Staying with the Blue Lions would’ve afforded Sylvain safety and comfort, staying in his father’s and family’s good graces, choosing not to desecrate the Gautier name with the previously sullied Alliance. Sylvain had broken the mold his family had tried put him in, had forged a new path for himself.

“…you’re the one good thing in my life. You always have been.” 

And Felix can’t stop his heart from sinking, can’t stop his anger and rage from melting, turning soft and pliant by his words. He exhales once, long and low against the tanned skin of Sylvain’s chest, pebbling goosebumps where his breath fans out. 

“And… and you never asked me to join you?” He hates how shaky, how unsure he sounds.

“Felix.” Sylvain’s voice is low and serious now, quiet where it pushes through his lips. And now his arms are loosening around him, pushing him off his chest, squeezing at his hands. Tears fall steadily from the corners of his eyes, anguish flashing across his face in a way that makes Felix feel sick.

“How could I? How could I ask you to give up everything? For what? For _ me?_”

_ Because you knew I’d say yes, _ he wants to say, the words springing unbidden to push against his teeth, trapped inside by the firm line of his mouth. But it remains unspoken, a quiet snare of emotions he’s not prepared to untangle right now. He could laugh, or cry, or scream, or _ something_, because hasn’t he already given up enough for this stupid, dense, beautiful man in front of him? 

“Sylvain, I–” His voice sticks in his throat, cloying with raw honesty. “I’d follow you anywhere. _ You know that_.”

A choked sob sounds from Sylvain’s throat. Felix feels like he might drown in it.

“Please,” and he doesn’t know what he’s pleading for as Sylvain’s hands wrap him up, bringing him close, cradling them together. Something loosens in his chest at the sight before him, undone at the seams.

“Fe,” Sylvain’s voice is throaty, and suddenly he’s obscuring his entire field of view again, auburn lashes sparkling with moisture, fringing molten hazel eyes as he stares up into them. It’s overwhelming, having him here, in his hands, open and vulnerable in all the ways that hurt the most.

He dares to slip his hands up, circling the perfect curve of Sylvain’s neck, sliding his fingertips through coarse locks of mahogany. He’s the color of the sunset, or maybe it’s the sunrise, Felix doesn’t really know, he can’t quite pin it down – eyes peeking through reddish lashes, nearly golden in the glow of morning, freckles speckled across the bridge of his nose, beautifully imperfect. 

Sylvain sobs into their next kiss, freckled palms cupping his face softly, more gentle than Felix ever thought possible. He’s up on tiptoe, pressing his body weight into Sylvain, holding on for dear life. 

He let him go a million times. He’s not making the same mistake again. 

Sylvain kisses him, and kisses him, and _ kisses him _ until he feels woozy from lack of air, lips kiss-bitten and swollen, slick with shared spit. 

“Fuck, Fe. I’m an idiot,” Sylvain whispers into the crown of his head, voice thick with regret. His thumbs brush reassuring circles, firm and gentle, into the small of his back, a grounding sensation that brings him back into himself. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, hardly daring to breathe as Sylvain cracks a watery smile. Felix moves across his face to trace his outline with his lips – dancing along the bridge of his nose, over his fluttering lashes, across a cheekbone. And in that moment, seeing him smile, Felix knows that everything – all of the stupid mistakes they’ve made over the course of their lives together – was completely and totally worth it.

Sylvain beams down at him, shy and tentative, as his hands bracket him in, strong and warm. He looks relieved, like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. “You have no idea how long I've wanted to tell you that.”

“Try me.” Felix’s deadpan makes Sylvain laugh, soft and breathless, hugging him closer, running a hand over the two braids, loose and soft after sleeping on them. Felix turns his head, resting his temple against the steady thrum of Sylvain’s heart.

“Okay,” Sylvain breathes out, taking the bait, and Felix can feel the flutter of his heart skipping beneath his hand, “how about,” and then his chin is being tilted up and they’re kissing again, softer, slower–

Sylvain’s neck curves where he leans down into him, unruly hair falling over his face until Felix’s thumbs swipe it away, pressing into the ridge of his cheekbone, anchoring him in place. Their foreheads meet and suddenly Felix is drowning in those whiskey pools, liquid honey, soft and searing. 

“I love you.”

He could cry, or hit him, or both, but instead he just swallows, tears springing to the corners of his eyes, the ethereal image of Sylvain starting to swim in front of him. 

Where Sylvain is a man of words, Felix has always been a man of action. He pulls him down, slipping his tongue between the parted seam of plush lips, and he’s taken back to their first kiss in his old room at school. This is less hungry but equally as desperate, tongue and teeth colliding in the sweetest symphony he’s ever tasted. 

His love – it feels like falling snow on bare skin, kissing down his cheeks and throat, cold for the briefest instant before melting into where they become one. It’s brighter, more blinding than any summer day in Fodlan, inexplicably tender and soft to the touch, and Felix can’t help but turn to it like a flower to the sun, insistently needy. 

Freckled hands graze his silhouette, fingertips dipping into the valleys between his ribs, the peaks of his spine, the steady stream of tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. 

It’s easy, holding Sylvain. He’s dreamed of it a thousand times before, but right now he feels so damn _ lucky, _closing his eyes and wanting to weep with sheer gratitude for it all. Age – or maybe it’s just Sylvain – has made him soft, sentimental, cradled as he is in his palms.

He thinks that he might not mind it after all. 

Slow, measured steps carry them back to his bed, led by Sylvain, sure and steady. The quiet ghost of a sob leaves his lips as he’s cocooned in warm, heady heat – the pool of blankets beneath him, Sylvain arching over him. It aches in the best way, like soothing away an old bruise, still tender but mostly sweet. 

There’s no buildup, no flirtatious kisses or teasing touches – just him and Sylvain, wrapped up in each other at long last. Breathy sighs fill the air around them, heating the negative space between their bodies as they kiss, achingly soft. 

It’s enough for Felix, it truly is. He could kiss Sylvain forever, until the end of time, and die happy. He’s doing his best to memorize all the things that elicit a reaction from him – how stroking over the nape of his neck with two fingers makes him shudder into his touch; how he melts like putty in his palms when he licks into his mouth curiously, reveling in the hot twist of their tongues sliding together. 

The simple pleasure of his hands on him, careful and meticulous, has Felix feeling like he could float away. A whimpered whine leaves his lips when Sylvain pulls back, stroking the pads of his thumbs over his cheeks, through his hair.

“Can I see you?”

Heat burns across his face at the implication of Sylvain’s question, and he turns his head into the pillow, feeling shy and embarrassed. 

Sylvain bites his lip, and Felix’s eyes are drawn to it like a moth to a flame. “We don’t have to, I just…” 

He shakes his head, stroking thumbs across Sylvain’s jawline, the stubble on his throat. The words die in Sylvain’s throat as Felix dances his hands up, trailing featherlight touches across the flat plane of his stomach, stroking over the trail of hair peeking out from the band of his linen pants. 

He doesn’t have words for how he’s feeling, not yet anyway, so he responds the best way he knows how: by canting his hips up, securing his thighs around the small of Sylvain’s back, bringing them together, tantalizingly close.

_ “Oh–“ _

“Oh,”

They both cry out in tandem at the rush of heat the slightest hint of friction brings. It’s a sensation Felix doesn’t think he’s ever going to forget. His instinct screams at him to chase it, so he does, Sylvain following him down, grinding sweet and low into him. 

His eyes close, because it’s all starting to become too much, Sylvain kissing and rocking into him as if he’s something precious and sweet, something to be savored. Rough thumbs brush over his brows, across the plane of his cheeks, down the hook of his jaw. The affection, the sheer adoration Sylvain showers down on him is unlike anything he’s felt before. He’s floating, untethered from this planet, gone to live in the constellations of freckles that spatter the bridge of Sylvain’s nose; devastatingly beautiful in their myriad of hues. 

His heart burns in his chest, beating for Sylvain and only Sylvain as a freckled hand moves from where it’s cupping his jawline to the waistband of his pants, knocking against his own hand still resting on Sylvain’s belly, as he strokes over his growing arousal with a firm palm. Felix grinds up into his touch, gasping quietly against his cheek, already feeling like he’s falling apart.

“Let me take care of you,” Sylvain whispers into his brow, repeating his request from last night, but this time his reaction is more hazy, less angry as Felix gasps beneath him, squirming up into his touch.

“Please,” he murmurs, his brain stuck on repeat as Sylvain slides the elastic waistband down easily, freeing his cock from the confines of his loose pants. Sylvain’s hand, warm and roughly calloused, makes him see stars as he rubs against him, loosely fisting his length in his palm. 

He whines when Sylvain moves away, brows creasing to meet in the middle, tensing to prop himself up on his elbows to watch him from across the room. He’s rummaging through one of his dresser drawers, and when he finally finds what he’s looking for he’s back in Felix’s arms, his chest warm where it presses against him.

“Sorry,” Felix can’t help but feel like Sylvain’s whispered apology isn’t just for this brief pause, but for all the times he’s ever left before. It makes him want to cry.

“Wanna make you feel good,” he murmurs into his ear, shy and pleading as he uncorks the vial with shaky hands, drizzling slick oil into his cupped palm. Felix sinks back into the sheets, forcing himself to savor each and every moment like it’ll be his last.

Sylvain’s hands light a fire inside of him he didn’t know he had, shuddering as he touches him in all the right ways – broad thumbs curling into his hip to hold him down, closed palm fisting over the hard head of his cock to spread slick wetness down the length of him. 

Heat climbs through his insides, starting low in his belly and spreading to encompass the very tips of his fingers, molten lava where they brush against Sylvain. He scrabbles against firm heat, slipping off loose pants to finally see him, feel him, touch him in all the ways he’s dreamed of late at night, sheets flowing like mercurial pools around his hips as he stroked himself up and off and over his peak to thoughts of Sylvain. 

And somehow, contrary to everything he’s always told himself, Sylvain’s here. He’s _ here, _above him, real life flesh and blood and wild bedhead and freckled arms, pumping him slow and sweet, looking down at him with eyes full of love and adoration, the look he’s craved to see his entire life. 

His chest hurts, tight with emotion, as he watches Sylvain gasp down at him, lip trembling, shining tears unshed. He wants to feel Sylvain inside him, to clench hard around him, to push and pull their bodies together until he can’t tell who’s who in a tangle of legs and slippery heat. 

But then Sylvain’s pressing their cocks together, hands slipping over one another’s in a slick mess, and it’s all too much – Felix sobs out, tiny bursts of lightning crackling behind his eyelids, hot pain-turned-pleasure shooting low through his stomach from the intensity, the raw vulnerability of it all.

His orgasm crashes over him slowly, an undulating wave, pulsing slick in Sylvain’s palm, who’s following him over the edge, shuddering against his hand. The sharp point of his nose presses into the meat of his cheek, teeth nipping into the indent of his asymmetrical dimple, hot breath coming in ragged gasps against the corner of his mouth – _ “Felix, sweetheart, I love you, I love you, I love you.” _

Felix vaguely registers the swipe of warm, wet cloth over his stomach, the loving murmurs of Sylvain in his ear when he shifts Felix onto his side and slots himself behind, curling his larger frame over his own in a safe cocoon of warm affection. His hands come up, fingers interlacing through Sylvain’s scarred, calloused ones, settling atop his chest, still pounding in recovery.

No words pass between them, the hazy afterglow more than enough to wrap them up close together. Sylvain’s nose presses into the nape of his neck, reminiscent of tumbling into the warm embrace of sleep together last night, hair damp on their shared pillow. 

He doesn’t realize they’ve dozed off until he wakes with a cough. It’s softer, not as crackling harsh against his lungs like when he’d first woken up that morning. Which – it wasn’t morning anymore, they must’ve slept the entire day away, pressed up bare against each other in the safety of his bed.

Dusky sunset filters through the windows, smearing swirls of purples, yellows, oranges from behind the sloping silhouette of snow-capped peaks. Pink light casts flickering patterns across their skin, and when he turns into Sylvain’s chest he finds him bathed in a fiery glow, his own personal sun, the bright, brilliant energy he’s been orbiting his entire life. He looks peaceful like this – mouth parted in the tease of a snore, lashes casting long shadows across his cheeks, slack against the cushion of pillows and tangled sheets.

Realization hits him so hard it nearly brings tears to his eyes for the umpteenth time today.

_ He didn’t leave. _

Sylvain’s still here, shifting in his sleep to pull Felix even closer – one wide palm resting heavy on the wing of a shoulder blade, the fingers of another weaving into the side of where one of the twin braids meets his head, loose and wavy where his silk strands slip apart.

He can’t help the way his fingers trace over the curves of Sylvain’s face, mapping all the parts of him he’s always known but never had the privilege of touching – part of his brain still unbelieving that this wasn’t all one big fever dream, his illness progressed into the cruelest, sweetest hallucinations his brain can conjure. Thumbing over the planes of his jaw, his sturdy frame draped over his, Felix thinks he could fly apart, heart beating erratically in his chest. He’s real, and he’s here, and he didn’t leave, and he’s Felix’s to touch, to hold, to kiss, to love. 

Those three words sit on the tip of his tongue, begging to leave his mouth. He tests them out, rolling them around between his teeth. They’re heavy, aching to be set free. It’s weighed like a stone in the back of his mind for years, a burden that’s weathered death and fights and loneliness and _ war _ to make it here, now, spilling from his lips in the smallest slip of a hoarse whisper, breathed into the hollow dip of Sylvain’s collarbone, he’s finally _ home _–

_ “I love you,” _he whispers, sacred like a prayer to something he doesn’t believe in, something he doesn’t deserve. 

**Author's Note:**

> lots of love and huuuuuge thank you to [cha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akhikosanada/pseuds/akhikosanada), [ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itch/pseuds/Itch), and [sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunmikkyu/pseuds/sunmikkyu) for reading this, beta-ing it, and leaving me encouraging comments (like "i am going to Beat you to Death" and "im going to fucking scream at you who gave you the right to toy with my damn heart like this") in the doc for this ♡♡♡


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